There Are Worse Things I Could Do »

As a film, television, and Broadway star, ADRIENNE BARBEAU 's career spans forty years. Genre fans know her from The Fog, Creepshow, Swamp Thing, and Escape From New York. She was nominated for a Tony for creating the role of Rizzo in “Grease” and starred as Maude's daughter in the hit series Maude and as Ruthie the Snake Dancer in HBO's Carnivale. She is the author of the best-selling memoir “There Are Worse Things I Could Do.”

Adrienne Barbeau never set out to be a sex symbol and she never intended to become the poster girl for women over 50 having babies, but both those stories and a lot more are detailed in this witty, revealing memoir of the Tony-nominated actress.

This book covers Adrienne's early years in New York (“No one said Mafia out loud in those days. There was always the fear you wouldn’t live to say anything else.”), to starring on Broadway in Grease (“Alexander Cohen swore the only way we’d win a Tony was over his dead body”). She tells tales about her two hit television series (Maude and Carnivale), her many television and feature films (The Fog, Escape from New York, Cannonball Run, Swamp Thing, Back to School, Creepshow), her singing career (“Doc Severinson and the band had been in the audience during my nude foray off-Broadway in Stag Movie”), her romance with Burt Reynolds, her marriage to director John Carpenter, and marrying a much younger man and giving birth to twins at age 51.

Publishers Weekly

Barbeau hits 60 fabulously in this straightforward, muscularly written memoir of the acting life. The Maude star proves herself a writer with flair, as well as a passionate singer, though she gained fame as a stage actress in New York City once she left her San Jose, Calif., home at age 19 in 1964. The daughter of Armenian parents, Barbeau was often typecast in ethnic parts thanks to her dark, bosomy good looks; working as a go-go girl, she got her first break in Fiddler on the Roof. After the nude musical Stag Movie and the hit Grease, Barbeau flew to L.A. to audition for Norman Lear's '70s spinoff to All in the Family, Maude, starring Bea Arthur. To Barbeau's astonishment, she was hired after an extensive search to play Maude's feminist daughter, Carole, and she stayed for all six years the show ran. Suddenly a recognizable star, she dated a string of sexy men including Burt Reynolds; she married director John Carpenter, who cast her in his forgettable suspense films. Barbeau found happiness in a second marriage with Billy Van Zandt, and motherhood, with twins, at 51. Endearingly, Barbeau never considered herself a sex symbol and only wanted to be loved for her singing. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

The Journals     1
Mostly Armenian     5
Richard     11
Getting Started     27
Matty's Mardi Gras     33
The Process     45
Richard Redux     49
The Mob Revisited     63
Broadway     69
Grease     83
Maude     93
The Sex Symbol     115
Burt     121
The Sex Symbol in Action-Or Lack Thereof     133
Sex in '77     139
Meeting John     145
Singing     153
Marrying John     163
The Fog     167
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions     175
Escape     183
Swamp Thing     191
Creepshow     199
John Cody Carpenter     203
The Healer     209
More Healing     215
The Lawyer     221
Mt. Whitney     225
Meeting Billy     229
Marrying Billy     235
The Rat Movie     247
The Twins     257
Kander and Ebb     273
Manifesting     279
My Mother     283
Carnivale     293
Sex Scenes and Snakes     307
The Stylist     313
Eighteen Days in Queens     323
And Finally...     337
Thank You     341